Volume 8 Issue 10 
May  2005

The Ethics of Knowledge

What value is knowledge and understanding if the owner does not have the attitudes, values and qualities that underpin  principles for its wise use? Knowledge and understanding cannot be pursued without appropriate attitudes, values and qualities, it cannot be applied without them and it cannot be communicated effectively without them. They form the core of our society and we communicate them intrinsically every moment, often without realising it and often in a manner that is inconsistent at best and contradictory at worst.

How are attitudes, values and qualities "taught" in schools and is there value in formalising their delivery and what are the underlying attitudes, values and qualities which we can all agree on?

Comments & Suggestions to mark@work.co.nz

But first: Why are we so keen for students to understand?

The change from the first education paradigm where information was rare, expensive and relatively reliable, to the second education paradigm where information was overwhelming and considerably unreliable has been accompanied by considerable changes in the sectors where people are employed. 

The 1800’s: In the 1800s people were predominantly employed in the manufacturing and farming sectors where they either made objects for sale or grew crops and animals for food.   Significant numbers of people were employed in the service sector as teachers, store owners, lawmakers and politicians. A few  others, "the  knowledge workers", used their knowledge and understanding to generate new businesses via entrepreneurial activity and risk taking. 

The 20^th century: In the 20th century there was a dramatic shift in the numbers of people employed in each of these sectors.  Manufacturing and farming lost their dominance to the emerging service sector.  The number of  knowledge workers also increased but not significantly. 

The reduction in the number of people working in manufacturing and farming came via efficiencies and productivity gains in both farming and industrial production.

Increasingly manufacturing industries competed in a global marketplace  where the cost of transporting manufactured articles dropped steadily and dramatically.  This meant that labour   inevitably became the dominant  factor in the cost of any manufactured  article, and consequently those with ideas for products sought out countries that could supply cheap labour in order to keep their cost of production to a minimum.  Automation and robotics  had now also begun to have a significant impact on the number of employees  required  to produce any given product. 

Manufacturers still wanted to achieve a high level of quality, and in the last 10 years China has played an increasing role in this “off-shore” production niche.[1] However despite these significant shifts in employment within sectors, unemployment has not risen significantly (and has reduced in many), as proportionately more people moved out of manufacturing/farming and transitioned into the service sector. The service sector in most Western countries now employs 70-80 percent of all workers. 

Quoting from an excellent article from the journal China in Transition

"It is generally known that industrial structure evolves from primary industry to secondary, then to tertiary, reflecting the shift in demand from food to industrial products then to services, in accordance with an increase in people's income (Petty-Clark's Law).).[2]

The de-industrialisation process is a phenomenon that is common to advanced economies.  The workforce changes in the 20^th Century saw the number of employees in the "knowledge" sector increase but not substantially.

The 21stCentury:  The 21st century has seen a continuation of the trend of people moving out of the manufacturing and farming sector and moving into the service sector but at a reduced rate.  However a new trend reflecting significant growth in the "knowledge" sector is beginning to emerge. The reasons for this are slightly more complex but they follow the general line that as countries seek to preserve their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth by selling products and services to overseas countries,  the need for increasing efficiency in manufacturing and farming techniques will become more crucial as the relative high cost of their products (due to the high price of local labour) in comparison to low-wage rate economies means they will generally only be able to compete by creating innovative and/or well branded products,  that will be attractive to overseas countries  that are willing to pay a premium price for “branded” and innovative products and services. 

"New technologies, that are taking over many of the routine tasks performed in the workplace, are directing workers toward the more complex tasks that require thinking, understanding, assimilating new knowledge, and problem solving. A new computer-guided system for finding defects in textiles does so with greater accuracy than  could human inspectors, enabling the work to be accomplished at much faster speeds (Taylor 1998)." [3]

It is therefore  vital that a considerable percentage of the workforce have the capability to carry out complex tasks  that require thinking,  understanding and the assimilation of new knowledge, and  engage in the kind of problem solving that will produce innovative and ingenious ideas on a continual basis.  Without these people within our community, the requirement to generate a continual increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will simply not be possible.

Societies that are endowed with a significant number of people who can carry out complex tasks   that require thinking, understanding, assimilating new knowledge and problem solving, generate another valuable by-product in the form of collective intellectual capital  that can be sold  in lieu of products actually being created.  As every economist knows the more that we can process that intellectual capital within the country and the more people who are involved in those processes, the more capable  the country is of maintaining high levels of employment. Having the clever idea of growing trees and selling them as logs to overseas countries is all very well but the value added additional processes of creating innovative and ingenious or well branded more refined products from the logs  are guaranteed to further augment income and local employment. Despite the encouragement to use intellectual capital (IP) to maintain employment rates locally there is an increasing trade in selling IP on the market and having the product or service created within cheap labour markets.

In this context it is not  only the knowledge workers who are capable of problem solving, thinking,  understanding and who have the ability to assimilate new knowledge  but also virtually every service worker, manufacturer and farmer, will be tuned in to the value of their contribution to increased efficiencies, the impact of ever-evolving technology and new marketing and management systems which will to give their particular business an edge over both national and international competitors.

Department of Labour claims that "another challenge is the long-term shift from goods-producing to service-producing employment associated with a dramatic increase in the demand for knowledge workers — people whose jobs require formal and advanced schooling. Knowledge workers now account for a third of the American workforce, outnumbering factory workers two to one." This fact alone calls for a dramatic change in the way we prepare students for their futures.[4]

The impact of this transition on schools:   If we look at the growth in the knowledge sector in the 21st century we will see that it is three to four times that of the 20th century.  As a sector, these workers will generate the potential for much of the rest of the economy to continue to increase its GDP and potentially the overall quality of life of each citizen. Schools therefore need to generate a far greater pool of people who have the capability to understand, think laterally, generate new ideas, solve complex problems and be good decision makers, accessing, processing and synthesising large quantities of information in a wide variety of formats.

However, one very large assumption is being made in relation to the
capability of the knowledge worker and indeed every worker within
the service industry, manufacturing and farming industries.

It is all very well to understand, think laterally, generate new ideas, solve complex problems and be good decision makers, accessing, processing and synthesising large quantities of information in a wide variety of formats BUT if those same people lack the  attitudes, qualities and values  necessary to transmit, share, empower and provide the leadership that will allow their very clever ideas to blossom, mature and provide processes, systems, products and environments  that will benefit their entire community, then we are all in  big trouble and the ideas will go nowhere. 

Workplaces are not just about work and communities are not just about workplaces.  Unless  communities are prepared to share positive attitudes, qualities and values  the inevitable disharmony, tension and eventually disputes  generated will hinder the health and welfare of  that community. 

Unesco differentiates between values and attitudes in the following way:

“The values and attitudes we live by affect how we relate to other people and to all our activities in the environment, and so are a major influence on our prospects for achieving a sustainable future.

Although they cannot be separated from cognitive understanding, values and attitudes relate to the affective (or emotional) dimension of human behaviour. While values and attitudes are similar in this regard, they differ in several important ways.

At this point we would like to introduce another personal classification: Qualities.  Personal qualities extend beyond values and attitudes  because, by their very nature, they reflect the individual’s personality and its impact on the values and attitudes  of that person.

It is all very well to have a good set of values and attitudes but it is  the way in which individual personalities display to the world the interplay between their disposition and their values and attitudes  that can make that person invaluable in a wide range of situations, whether it be an emergency  where heroic action is required, or in the office which simply needs someone who is light-hearted and fun to be around in order to generate a cordial environment  in which to work and socialise. For example an individual’s role in society will be enhanced exponentially by an outward display of confidence, tolerance, cheerfulness and a measured sense of self-belief.  The equation below provides a measure of the importance of  personal qualities:

[attitudes + values] ^qualities  = value to society & community

For every positive attitude, value and quality there is also a negative equivalent and each person’s personality reflects the interplay between the values and attitudes that they would  display under different circumstances and levels of pressure. Results of comparative testing in a controlled group would prove very interesting.

Various government, school/church based or community-based institutions  are and have been involved in the process of encouraging good attitudes, qualities and values  but many of these  are becoming less effective or relevant in our communities today for many and varied societal reasons. The busyness of life and the reduced impact of some of these institutions, (which have historically not only encouraged  but also expected positive attitudes, qualities and values),  have both contributed to the increased pressure on schools to provide a substantial input in this area.  As is often the case the balance between  the school and home-based  contribution varies considerably but one thing is universal; when parents receive a school report about their child, their concern about the attitudes, qualities and values  being instilled into the child at school often outweigh those of the academic grades being achieved or awarded.

In the diagram below we have identified some of the values, attitudes and qualities that are achievable and it should be noted that some of these examples could exist in more than one of these realms.

The extent to which attitudes, values and qualities can be taught or modelled is a mute point but the effect of changed (for the good) attitudes, values and qualities cannot be overestimated. Intrinsic and extrinsic modelling and teaching of positive attitudes, values and qualities should accompany all learning and teaching processes.

 We will introduce here another concept, often referred to as “principles”. 

Principles are the idealistic, net effect of applying appropriate
attitudes, qualities and values to our knowledge.

Schools are increasingly looking to how they can better encourage, via a set of principles, the positive end of the spectrum when it comes to a child’s attitudes, qualities and values and many programs are being marketed that attempt to teach these aspects, but at the core of this process there needs to be the conviction within the child of the very distinct and unique purpose of his/her life. Just as “without vision the people perish” applies in a physical sense, so too “without purpose we perish” applies emotionally. The knowledge that an individual has purpose allows almost any barrier to be overcome and the positive end of the spectrum of attitudes, values and qualities to be displayed.

The principles often espoused by schools are based on a combination of attitudes, qualities and values when applied to knowledge that the school wishes to see represented in the actions of their pupils.

The question remains however "is there a set of underlying principles (representing knowledge and understanding wrapped in attitudes, qualities and values) that a consensus of community members can agree on as being beneficial to all members?" 

Many papers have been written on this topic of late and some work recently done in Australia may provide some effective guidelines for all countries in terms of recognising that we "teach ethics/principles" through expected attitudes, qualities and values, that we encourage, enforce and display both extrinsically and intrinsically every day in the classroom and within the school.

The paper entitled: ”Australian Perspectives On Values Education: Research In Philosophical, Professional And Curricular”, Terence J. Lovat; (Professor of Education: The University of Newcastle; New South Wales), highlights many of the issues surrounding education systems throughout the world in regard in regard to the teaching of ethics.

The paper by Professor Lovat, and now adopted by the New South Wales Department of Education, makes the following contribution:

In New South Wales (NSW), the Department of Education document, The Values We Teach (NSW, 1991), states:

Public schools are not value free. They aim to inculcate and develop in students entrusted in their care those educational, personal, social, moral and spiritual values which are shared by the great majority. (p. 55)

In spite of an earlier trend which saw public education pursuing an explicit non-religious and values-neutral stance, the current push is entirely consistent with the spirit and terms of some of the very earliest conceptions of public education in the country.” [6]

Later on in the same paper we see a reference to the acknowledgment of that changing trend in regard to the teaching of ethics and values within schools.  Rather than ignoring certain aspects of values the paper notes a trend towards a greater desire for schools to develop an extrinsic policy in relationship to the teaching of ethics via the encouragement of a range of attitudes, values, qualities and principles.

“Recognition of difference in ethical cultures, including the possibility of the innovation of new ethical cultures emerging is an important perspective for the educator of values to maintain. It is equally important that such an educator recognize the importance of consistency in the values positions being espoused and those being pursued in one's own professional conduct. Renewed emphasis on the place of educating for values has led to new considerations of the desirability of developing professional codes of conduct.”

In order to gain an insight into what could be a set of international principles, acceptable to most cultures globally we need to reflect, and take a sufficiently external reference point and ask the question "Can we imagine a purely non-self-serving set of attitudes, values, qualities and principles which express attitudes, values, qualities and principles which would arise from the desire for each individual to work collectively, socially, spiritually and economically for the overall good of the community?”

But will a universal set of principles meet specific requirements of particular schools?  Perhaps not, but they could provide a foundation, a starting place for schools that are looking to formalise what has often been an informal and often contradictory set of attitudes, values, qualities and principles, engendered within the school via the administration, teaching staff and indeed the pupils.  A values audit may need to be taken in order to develop a new more specific profile aspired to by the school.

In a paper entitled “Promoting The Ethical School: Professional Ethics For School Administrators” presented by Dr Kathie Forster of the University of Technology Sydney to the symposium on The Ethics of the Teaching Profession[7], Dr Foster makes some very worthwhile suggestions in regard to carrying out a values audit and then identifying “values gaps”.

Some suggestions (based on the guidelines developed by Longstaff, 1994b) can be made for the process of developing a code of ethics that will be an effective working document in a school.

A good starting point is to conduct a 'values audit'. This would involve asking the school staff to indicate:

·                   What they think are the most important values the school stands for;

·                   How prominent they believe each of these values ought to be in the school; and

·                   How prominent they believe each of these values actually is in the school.

This activity will begin to identify a 'values gap' and can provide a springboard for a code of ethics as the development of a set of principles which will contribute to closing that gap.

·                 Guidance should be given to schools by indicating a number of issues that should be incorporated in the code, for example confidentiality; a broad statement of the rights and responsibilities of students, teachers and parents; and protection of 'whistle-blowers'.

·                 Within that framework, the code of ethics should be hammered out by the school staff members themselves. The outcome is more likely to be relevant to the daily experiences of that school while the process will reflect the principle that all individuals within the organisation are respected and will promote a culture in which trust is engendered and value differences are acknowledged and negotiated.

·                 It will be important to 'test' the code by applying it to authentic ethical dilemmas confronted by school staff members.

·                 The process of developing the code should not be allowed to take too long but it should be done in such a way as to retain the sense of ownership sought at the outset.

·                 The code should be reviewed at regular intervals to avoid becoming 'stale' and forgotten.

·                 The fact that different schools will develop different codes should be encouraged, provided that the principles in the code are consistent with the overall ethical principles espoused by the system. Schools should go through the process of developing their own codes rather than using a code already developed at another school. The process is extremely important.”

This extrinsic teaching of attitudes, values, qualities and the resultant principles will always be contentious but as noted earlier on in this paper it is these very attributes when applied to knowledge that actually put the flesh on the bones of the knowledge and understanding contained in the mind of any individual.  This is what makes knowledge and understanding powerful and life-changing. In the final analysis it is those who have the capability to build conceptual frameworks in regard to ideas and who also have a set of well formulated and well expressed attitudes, values, qualities and principles, who will make a significant difference in their world and become true knowledge workers in the broadest sense of the term.  It is for this reason that we cannot ignore attitudes, values, qualities, and the principles which espouse these traits within our schools. Rather they should be identified, held up, promoted explicitly, modelled, taught, expected, celebrated, and continuously practised in every day actions by all members of any community as best as is possible, given our very human condition of tending to place self-interest above all else. As educators within the school system we have a duty to identify our role in this process and play our part in the disciplined application of the enshrined principles.

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